Best dive bar

The Other Place (OP)

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Matthew Thorsen

Jason Cooley at The OP

The Other Place (OP) —
Many a night begins and ends at the Other Place, just off the top of Burlington’s Church Street on North Winooski Avenue. Whether patrons are nursing a broken heart, celebrating a milestone or just enjoying day’s end, the bar welcomes any and all with open arms, takes them in and holds them close.

It’s a place of simple pleasures. The short draught list mixes local brews and cheap pilsners; the popcorn is salty and the tacos are available late. On warm summer nights, an open garage-door wall blurs the line between saloon and sidewalk, encouraging merrymaking on both sides.

The OP opened in 1980, but people have been boozing in the building for generations: It was the site of a bar called Sullivan’s and another named for Millard Fillmore, our nation’s 13th president.

Now home to a mixed crowd of Heady Topper-drinking hipsters, Old North End denizens and a fair number of college students, the OP is the kind of neighborhood bar that’s your bar from the moment you walk in.